What do you think we should do? he asked.
Do? she repeated. We need to worry about simple things.
He sat next to her.
Come here, she told him. Feel it.
It was as if she’d taken a stranger’s hand. She held it to her. There had been entire days she’d refused to acknowledge this. She closed her eyes, then forced herself to open them and look at him. He was staring at his hand.
When I was boy, he said, I used to hate my hands. They were so hairy. I remember one of my teachers said that hands were a symbol of human beauty or humanity or something.
Isa let her eyes close. Drifting, she could sense the weight of his hand, its heat like that of a sleeping creature. Later, she realized that the pressure was gone. She heard the creaking floor and gazed from the bedroom through the dim living room into the kitchen. Bart’s head almost touched the ceiling. Lamplight bruised the declivities in his haggard and fattened face. Neither spoke. He was holding a bottle, now reaching for the counter like an old man.
In the morning he was gone. She couldn’t recall him returning to bed. Vague sunlight came through the windows. She put on her coat and sat on the stairs. Across the building a boy came out. He checked the thermometer, then wrote in a journal.
What are you doing? she asked.
I’m keeping a record of temperatures, he said matter-of-factly. I send them to my cousin in Mexico City, and she sends me the temperatures there. It’s sunny now, but the radio says it’s going to snow today, so I’m checking every hour.
Oh. She tried to smile. For the first time she considered what her child might be like.
Are you Bart’s wife?
Um, yes.
I’m Miguel. Bart told me he’s going to be a writer someday. It’s a coincidence because I’m a writer too. But I write about the future.
The future? she repeated, considering Bart as a writer, that he might see himself this way.
Yes, mostly about intergalactic travel. I’m working on a book about a world where body parts are replaced and nobody dies. This world as we know it, he added, will soon be obsolete.
Obsolete?
He looked at her sharply, perhaps annoyed that she kept repeating.
Exactly. Everything we do won’t matter anymore. We’ll stop aging, and work will be done by robots. People will get to enjoy their lives forever.
Like children.
In a way, he agreed. But better.
Later, still waiting for Bart, Isa considered this future. Would she sacrifice a little of herself for certainty: nobody forgotten, a bar code on her arm, a number on one of a million identical doors?
She slept through the morning, then began cleaning. Work clothes were piled in the closet, the mud on them dried to a fine dust. Empty whisky bottles cluttered the space beneath the sink. She thought of Jude. The weather had turned, and snowflakes struck the glass. Traffic sounded hushed. She watched the wet halos of car lights. She didn’t want to run away again.
She went into the bathroom and pulled back her hair. She held her hands to her belly. Her body had changed so much. The child moved often.
She found a phonebook in the kitchen. When Bart had first told his stories, she’d made a mental note of his mother’s name. There were quite a few Beaulieus, but on her third call an elderly man said that Amy Beaulieu had been his niece, and what was the research about?
Just a genealogy, she told him, and soon she knew which of the remaining numbers was Bart’s grandmother. The listing read Bill and Evelyn Beaulieu, but he told her the grandfather had passed on. The wife lived alone. Isa let him finish. She thanked him and wrote down the address.
She put on her jacket and took her purse.
Snow fell steadily out of a dark sky. A few Christmas wreaths shone on lampposts.
She started the car and turned on the defrost. Sitting in the cold she felt a pulse deep inside her. Snow had gathered around the tires, but after a few attempts she was able to back out.
The house wasn’t far. She rang the doorbell and stood, pulling at her jacket. She’d been afraid to call and lose momentum. A stocky man with a moustache answered.
Yes? he said.
Hello, I’m looking for Evelyn Beaulieu.
Right. She’s here.
Who is it? a woman’s voice called. She came to the top of the stairs inside. Her cheeks had spots the same iron colour as her hair. She took off her glasses and held them a bit in front of her face.
Can I help you?
Isa touched her jacket over her belly. She wondered how she looked. I’m sorry to come by so late. I’m your grandson’s wife.
Which one?
Bart, she said.
Evelyn mouthed his name. Bart? she repeated. He’s around?
He lives nearby.
Come in. Come in anyway. I don’t know why we’re making you stand in the cold.
Evelyn put water for tea in the microwave, then sat. Isa told her where Bart was working, that they’d been living in Virginia and had moved to be closer to the family.
Evelyn furrowed her brow slightly. I lost track of him a long time ago.
I know. But he’s here now. Isa tried to smile.
Oh. I see. Well, apparently he had a very bad time growing up. He wasn’t one of the lucky ones.
He’ll get settled.
Yes, Evelyn agreed.
They sat. Knit doilies lay on the coffee table and mantels, under the telephone. Framed photographs showed brides and heavyset grooms in tuxedos sitting sideways and smiling into the camera. The man hadn’t spoken. He shifted in his chair and pursed his lips.
I was hoping to know more about the family, Isa told them.
Well, Evelyn said, a few of us were together today. We just came back. This is Mike. He drove me. He and Bart would be cousins, I think. She lifted her hands as if to shrug and put them back on the armrests. It was never a very close family. And the children who do stay around are parents, grandparents some of them, and they have their own to deal with. But Bart’s mother never had much to do with us. I think I saw him only two or three times.
Isa glanced at the photos. She tried to connect the youths with the men, the girls with mothers.
Do you have any pictures of Bart?
Evelyn hesitated. No, she said. No, I don’t think so. There was no reason I would.
Isa struggled to breathe. She felt herself being looked at. I’m pregnant, she said.
Evelyn lifted her eyebrows with a sudden motion, like the wings of a bird. I can see that. Will it be a boy or a girl?
I don’t know, Isa said. She wasn’t sure why she’d come. She’d wanted some way to help hold her and Bart in place. I don’t want to keep you, she told them. In the kitchen the microwave binged loudly. She tried to calm her breath.
I need to go.
That’s okay, Evelyn said. It’s been nice meeting you. If I’d known you were in town, we would have invited you …
Thank you.
Evelyn stood and sat again.
I’ll clean the snow off your car, Mike offered.
Isa followed him into the drably suburban street. A wind had blown up, ice crystals tinkling on the windshield.
I’m sorry, he told her. He kept his hands in his pockets. A few of us knew Bart was around, but we had no idea … He lifted his chin … about you.
It’s okay.
When I was young, it was like we got used to seeing Bart come and go. He couldn’t stay still. He was always a nice guy. Nice to me anyway.
He likes to travel.
Yeah, he said. He cleaned off what little snow had gathered on her windshield. There wasn’t enough to warrant this. He couldn’t quite look at her. Listen, he said, I know things probably aren’t okay if you’re here alone. I … I’ve heard a few times what Bart’s been up to, but no one’s mentioned you. If you need help, my wife and I have an extra room. We’ll do what we can. There’s still some family. We’re not very close, but we all help out.
She wanted to ask
about Bart’s past, but it seemed unfair. Besides, what was there to know. The alcoholism couldn’t be new. She could guess other things from Bart’s stories, or from Evelyn’s hesitation and surprise.
Thank you, she said.
It’s no problem. We’ll be in touch, okay?
All right.
Good night.
She sat in the car. She felt what she was, a huge woman, pregnant, maybe even pathetic in their eyes.
On the drive through town she passed a shop with TVs in the windows, large images that she immediately recognized as New York’s streets at Christmastime. She felt that the world on the screens in no way belonged to hers.
Bart’s truck was there when she got back. Just inside she smelled him. The floors creaked in the bedroom. He came into the doorway, positioned so that the light from the kitchen showed the stubble on his jaw. Briefly she paused, lost in the moment, the gassy odour a familiar ghost.
He shifted closer. Where’ve you been?
She turned on the light. She tried to hold herself steady and look at him. Bloodshot veins banded his eyes. Did you kill Levon? she asked.
He rocked slightly and turned away. It was an accident, he said. He put his forehead against the wall. He appeared odd, large and unshaven and holding his face to the wall like a punished boy.
I went to see your grandmother, she told him, wishing he’d lied, that she’d never asked.
Slowly he straightened. The reek of alcohol was overwhelming, and she noticed that he held a bottle. She couldn’t make out the label, and if she hadn’t been trying, she wouldn’t have realized he was going to throw it. She screamed involuntarily.
You can’t do that, he said. You can’t.
From the way he stepped forward and back she understood he was forcing himself not to approach. She moved to the door. He swung and broke a chair effortlessly against the wall. She thought of words that might have power or meaning. But seeing how easily everything came apart, she knew that all they could try was hopeless, and she fled.
By New Year’s she was in a hotel in Québec. She stayed in one after another, the humming resonance of travel inside her even as she slept. The northern sky seemed wider. Sunset came too soon, some evenings yellow and vast, others a faint red mist. Often she couldn’t recall if she’d showered or eaten. The highway was streaked with mud and salt, and she followed it.
It was strange she’d never been here before. She’d read so many books, had collected old photographic studies of the regions, quiet terrains that she searched for hints. She cast Jude’s stories against the landscape, but there was nothing of the cartoon past, its blurbs and silences. He hadn’t belonged to the recognizable currents of history the way Bart’s family had, even if Bart had lied about what remained. Jude had come too late. His death hadn’t left a single clue.
Was the desire to return natural, like that of a creature spawning? How long before it ceased to matter? She’d tried to make sense of what Jude had sought. Was it odd that a place she’d never known lived on within her?
She stopped at lighthouses and cathedrals. Repeatedly she was mistaken for une parisienne, for the accent she’d relearned in university. She was a foreigner here. Like all the others, she parked on the sides of roads and walked to outlooks where vistas offered what they could: a landscape with a few souvenir shops, or evening’s postcard on the sea.
For two weeks she stayed on the coast of Gaspésie. She rarely ate. She woke early, preferring this light. She thought of Virginia, the way the house had given her the space to dream and become something new.
At the nearby town she bought boots. The mountains, without leaves, showed the deep lines of their creation. Walking a frozen road she came to a place where trees had been felled and split, the tang of wood still in the air. Once Jude had sat and held his puckered hand, thinking himself unseen, in the barn loft for hours. Hidden, she’d matched his stillness until after dark, calming what she felt in her breath for him.
Her body ached. Her guts cramped. Her feet were swollen, and veins bulged in her legs. Though the cold made her return to the hotel, she felt she could walk off in such a way that the world would forgive her.
Mid-January a strange warm front arrived, announced on the radio. The sky seemed to unfurl, blue upon blue. Sunlight was on everything, itching in her sinuses. People stood outside, not talking, jackets shaken by gulf wind. Even in Virginia this weather would be odd for January: half a day of crystalline rain, hot winds, snow melting from grey outcroppings. Ice floes crowded into the gulf. What was Bart feeling now? It seemed a lifetime ago that they’d lain together, talking about their mothers. What had happened to that part of them?
She decided to leave. She packed. Indian teenagers were out hitchhiking in jeans and heavy-metal T-shirts.
That afternoon she found a stretch of empty beach strewn with boulders. She took Jude’s ashes from the back of the car. The tide was coming in, washing against raw coastal mud. Slanted isles jutted from the sea, grown with grass and forest and looking, in the heaving water, like pieces sheared from hillsides, like parts of the world cut off and set afloat. There was no ritual she knew, no means of returning him to a place he’d left and which had kept no trace. Finally she undressed, naked, one hand on her stretched, aching belly. She wanted to be there completely. Her breath came shallowly. She threw ashes against the wind. Shattered, dry bits of bone fell away, and fine powder blew back onto her face. She touched her lips, the scar on her nose. She recalled the book on cannibals she’d read as a girl, and she moved her dusty fingers onto her tongue. They tasted of ash, faintly acrid. That was all, and she sat and held her belly. Regretting a last gesture, she thought of her mother, of what other ceremony there might be. She’d assumed her dead, had never considered, even when she’d hired the investigator, that it might be otherwise. She lacked the strength to dream her life over again.
In brisk sunlight she dressed, startled movement within her, pain. Touching grey hands to the boulders, she stumbled back. That night she parked on a stretch of shore, wind rocking the car, heat in the vents. She turned off the lights. She woke to moonlight on disturbed waters, a sense that this could be anywhere, any country but her own.
In Montréal she took a room. She left the Honda in a car park. She walked the blustery city: riotous karaoke, Irish pubs, Japanese kids in arcades, old Jews playing chess in a dingy café. Her love of the past had no place here, sleek cars and club music, boutiques of exotic knickknacks, Depart en Mer and Dix Milles Villages. Even the day before, Québec, the Plains of Abraham, the old town and picturesque inns—it had all been meaningless. She couldn’t go more than a few minutes without having to sit. She wanted sleep. People wavered like old ghosted TV tubes. They stared. She could see herself towering over them.
Where a street angled up against a city vista, a black woman stood in sunlight, holding a baby. Isa was confused, tired. She had a sense of loss. It took a moment, standing there, to realize how many things it might be.
Each morning she touched the closed venetians. The sun shone against them, and they shimmered like water.
Hunger woke her. She tried to hear her story told carefully by people she didn’t know. She stood at the mirror without her shirt and touched her breasts, her abdomen. She’d once read that the Spartans had treated childbearing as sacred as soldiery. All in the days before overpopulation.
She would gladly accept Miguel’s vision of the future now. The past, her suffering even, were obsolete. She could easily follow philosophy to that point. A place of letting go.
The snow had begun again, sweeping against skyscrapers, silencing the city, wet streets turned to ice. The radio was calling for a cold front, clear arctic skies. As low as minus forty. The weatherman warned people not to go out longer than necessary.
She slept constantly, it seemed, and never more than an hour at a time, pain frequent. She woke not knowing where she was. She wanted familiarity. She got up well before dawn. She dressed and went out and warmed the car. She
cleaned the snow off. In the city’s glow, the air felt sucked up away from the earth as if the atmosphere had expanded. Even as she drove the cold radiated through the windows, the heat sapped from inside, the car’s suspension stiff and jerky. During the hour to the border she was drowsy, her thoughts distracted, and in the bathroom there she washed her face and throat. On the empty interstates south, the stars shone a path between the trees. Briefly, she had a sense of grief, for all that had been lost or stolen, for the family she could no longer let herself imagine. Was she dreaming or remembering Virginia now, white fields, the way moonlight dissolved against the humid dark? Or those first evenings on Jude’s shoulders, endless galleries of sky and the lit city, the dark faces gazing up, sharing her wonder? The cold felt as if inside her. She wanted to sleep. She dreamed it was dawn. The grey sun dropped from a horizon of clouds. She closed her eyes and waited to be lifted from stillness.
Maine
December 1993–January 1994
Could he stop again? What reason was there to make this effort now?
He drank constantly. He hadn’t showered or shaved in weeks. People jerked their heads when he passed, and the men on his crew commented among themselves. He knew how easy rage would be. When he tried to make sense of things, it seemed that only his fear of his own anger held him in place.
The last time he’d stopped had been at a halfway house in Louisiana, his possessions a beat-up electric guitar and amplifier, and a grocery bag of books. Later, the director found him work and lodging on an old farm that was being converted to a nursery. There, dogwood and pawpaw and magnolia bloomed in the fields, each shift of wind fragrant, and he hadn’t minded his daily chores. Though his rages still came, sudden and inexplicable and making him want to drink, instead he dug, sweated, heaved at the earth. His pores released an animal smell that was neither bad nor good but which he hated.
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